To catch an iCheater... advice?

Hello... having been inspired by the famous MacRumors post detailing a man catching his cheating wife via Find My Friends, I decided to solicit advice here. Please go easy on me, as this is my first post.

Here's my dilemma:

My significant other began using Instagram about a year ago. Now it's her life. She's constantly hunched over her iPhone 4S screen. We share an Apple ID for our iDevices. Some time back, a new app called Kik Messenger showed up on my phone. She explained that it was a common IM client that was used by most Instagrammers to exchange tips, etc. Later, I learned that it's also all the rage for anonymous hookups.

I decided to look into this world a bit further.

Upon creating a fake IG account and building it up to a point where it's "legit," I began following her and tracing the trails of her friends and comments she/they have made on each other's photos. I was surprised (or maybe not) to find that there was lots of flirting with a particular group of guys and plenty of references to the trading of private, er, "revealing," photos via Kik. All out in the open. All within a few taps. In the meantime, I continued to feign ignorance on the IG platform, asking her "dumb" questions about it whenever she'd mention it (all while wondering if she thinks I'm selectively dumb on this topic- she knows I'm a smart person! I digress...)

So I begin to wonder... what would a really tech-smart person do in this situation... maybe to peek behind the curtain when it comes to Kik? I'd love to see proof of what's happening, because I'm honestly still having trouble believing that she'd do this. If it's nothing, it's nothing. But I need to know either way. We've been together for 12 years.

Specs:
iPhone 4S (both of us)
iOS 6, up-to-date
Same Apple ID
Instagram and Kik Messenger apps
I have a MacBook Pro.
She does most of her IM-ing while connected to our home Wi-Fi network.
I cannot get physical access to the phone- she guards it with her life.
Jailbreaking is not an option. She's savvy enough to detect that.

Just looking for advice here... want to look at all my options before jumping to any conclusions.

And yes, Find My iPhone works wonderfully. But the thing is, this seems to be mostly a virtual affair, as these guys are out-of-state/out-of-country. So she's never really anywhere unexpected physically.

You have already jumped to conclusions at this point given your actions. Let me offer you some advice, adult to adult.

This is a forum mostly dedicated to technology. Although your post has the undertones of that, it is really about you asking how you can catch your wife in a lie or worse, cheating. I suggest that if you have been with this woman for 12 years then you simply talk to her. It seems to me that her actions mimic that of a juvenile starting with Instagram and ending with some ******** messenger where she is possibly uploading selfies that should be reserved for you. You only compound the immaturity when you decide to do some low-end P.I. work by following her on Instagram and eventually this KIK messenger.

She is in the wrong if she is sending inappropriate pictures of herself via some messenger client to a bunch of random dudes, allegedly. It is time to talk to her and ask what is up but you may have to own up to making a "fake" account to follow her. If she has nothing to hide then she'll show you her messages on Kik right away. If she deflects and wanders away then she may have something to hide and has probably already erased her messages.

Aside from all of this and more importantly, sometimes there are better forums for asking for advice on your marriage/LTR.

Hello... having been inspired by the famous MacRumors post detailing a man catching his cheating wife via Find My Friends, I decided to solicit advice here. Please go easy on me, as this is my first post.

Here's my dilemma:

My significant other began using Instagram about a year ago. Now it's her life. She's constantly hunched over her iPhone 4S screen. We share an Apple ID for our iDevices. Some time back, a new app called Kik Messenger showed up on my phone. She explained that it was a common IM client that was used by most Instagrammers to exchange tips, etc. Later, I learned that it's also all the rage for anonymous hookups.

I decided to look into this world a bit further.

Upon creating a fake IG account and building it up to a point where it's "legit," I began following her and tracing the trails of her friends and comments she/they have made on each other's photos. I was surprised (or maybe not) to find that there was lots of flirting with a particular group of guys and plenty of references to the trading of private, er, "revealing," photos via Kik. All out in the open. All within a few taps. In the meantime, I continued to feign ignorance on the IG platform, asking her "dumb" questions about it whenever she'd mention it (all while wondering if she thinks I'm selectively dumb on this topic- she knows I'm a smart person! I digress...)

So I begin to wonder... what would a really tech-smart person do in this situation... maybe to peek behind the curtain when it comes to Kik? I'd love to see proof of what's happening, because I'm honestly still having trouble believing that she'd do this. If it's nothing, it's nothing. But I need to know either way. We've been together for 12 years.

Specs:
iPhone 4S (both of us)
iOS 6, up-to-date
Same Apple ID
Instagram and Kik Messenger apps
I have a MacBook Pro.
She does most of her IM-ing while connected to our home Wi-Fi network.
I cannot get physical access to the phone- she guards it with her life.
Jailbreaking is not an option. She's savvy enough to detect that.

Just looking for advice here... want to look at all my options before jumping to any conclusions.

And yes, Find My iPhone works wonderfully. But the thing is, this seems to be mostly a virtual affair, as these guys are out-of-state/out-of-country. So she's never really anywhere unexpected physically.

Thanks very much for your time and thoughts.

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Real advice? Sit down and talk to her. It seems you've already done your detective work... Communication is the best advice I can offer here.

Real advice? Sit down and talk to her. It seems you've already done your detective work... Communication is the best advice I can offer here.

Hope everything works out!

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I'd ditto that, the main reason a lot of relationships breakdown or lead to cheating or (iCheating) is because of a lack of communication, what's doing more detective work going to do other than worry and frustrate you further?

Ask her about what she does on Kik, don't sound incriminating, just curious.
If she deflects and gets defensive, just act like its normal for a bit, and ask again later. If she does the same, come out to her about your suspicions.
Just be inquisitive about what she does, and if she gets defensive, ask why she's defensive, maybe say you're concerned that she's spending so much time in the virtual world as opposed to with real friends or with you, make some subtle hints that you know, but nothing too obvious like "I SEE WHAT YOU DONE."
Good luck man, nobody wants to be a cuckold.

I'm imagining your wife of 12 years is in another forum asking for advice because she thinks her husband is spying on her. In addition to what others have said, I'll say this: once you peek behind the curtain, you can't unsee what you saw. If she catches you peeking, she may come to far worse conclusions about you than you have about her. Just talk to her, maybe about the health of your marriage, as that seems to be at stake here.

You have already jumped to conclusions at this point given your actions. Let me offer you some advice, adult to adult.

This is a forum mostly dedicated to technology. Although your post has the undertones of that, it is really about you asking how you can catch your wife in a lie or worse, cheating. I suggest that if you have been with this woman for 12 years then you simply talk to her. It seems to me that her actions mimic that of a juvenile starting with Instagram and ending with some ******** messenger where she is possibly uploading selfies that should be reserved for you. You only compound the immaturity when you decide to do some low-end P.I. work by following her on Instagram and eventually this KIK messenger.

She is in the wrong if she is sending inappropriate pictures of herself via some messenger client to a bunch of random dudes, allegedly. It is time to talk to her and ask what is up but you may have to own up to making a "fake" account to follow her. If she has nothing to hide then she'll show you her messages on Kik right away. If she deflects and wanders away then she may have something to hide and has probably already erased her messages.

Aside from all of this and more importantly, sometimes there are better forums for asking for advice on your marriage/LTR.

Click to expand...

That's great advice, and well said. I knew I was hovering around the boundaries of a tech forum, but this is one of my favorite sites and a great community, so I was interested in hearing thoughts from its members.

I am absolutely going to talk to her. That's my plan- this can't be overcome without a frank discussion and honesty on both parts. I'll admit to whatever I do to obtain information... I have no problem doing that.

I may not even use anything I find, and probably won't. I don't want to approach her in an accusatory tone, but to simply ask her if there's anything I should be concerned about, and what we can do to fix it.

That being said (you knew that was coming), for my own knowledge, and to make good choices, I want to be well-informed. If I find out that it's insignificant, I will probably just let it go. There's a lot on the line in this relationship, and I love her very much. So just to make sure I'm not crazy, and hopefully to put my fears to rest, I looked further into it.

I'm imagining your wife of 12 years is in another forum asking for advice because she thinks her husband is spying on her. In addition to what others have said, I'll say this: once you peek behind the curtain, you can't unsee what you saw. If she catches you peeking, she may come to far worse conclusions about you than you have about her. Just talk to her, maybe about the health of your marriage, as that seems to be at stake here.

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All true and good points (never said we were married, though). I'm going to consider any moves I make carefully. Thanks for responding- It makes me feel better to hear all angles on this.

First talk to her (yeh right u want the truth so move to other options.)

1) Wheres my iphone as you can track her every movements.

2) Backup to icloud so u can see all data.

3) if she does things on your macbook / any pc in the house install logmein. you can remote to it from your iphone and turn on the webcam. (i would never do something like that )

4) Try to setup synch over wifi with your itunes on ur macbook to her phone.

6) install drop box and set it to auto upload all pics to it and install it on your macbook as u will see all pics straight away,

5) if you want to go even more techy you could probably collect data thats going through your home router somehow.

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2) She is backed up to iCloud (we're subscribers)... the only way I've seen or thought to use that would be to restore her backup to another device. However, the caveat seems to be that after you do a restore from a backup, you need to re-enter your passwords for any accounts on the phone, so it'd be a dead end.

3) She does it all on the phone

4) If i did switch to backing up over Wi-Fi, how would I use that backup file? I assume I'd have to do some pretty sophisticated poking around with complex files (which I'm okay with, but wouldn't quite know where to start).

6) I do have Dropbox installed, but I'm not sure if photos you take with Kik ever hit the Camera Roll.. have to look into that... good thought.

5) This one is where I was hoping I might make headway... a packet sniffer/decoder or something...

Thanks for your thoughts. #1 made me laugh, but like I said, we will have the conversation, I just don't want to be uninformed going into it.

My significant other began using Instagram about a year ago. Now it's her life. She's constantly hunched over her iPhone 4S screen.

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Regardless of how you plan to "catch" her doing something, you've already lost the battle, my friend. You're going to be the runner-up in this popularity contest no matter what you do, and her phone is going to be the Winner.

Regardless of how you plan to "catch" her doing something, you've already lost the battle, my friend. You're going to be the runner-up in this popularity contest no matter what you do, and her phone is going to be the Winner.

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Oye- that's a rather grim prediction... I guess I can hope that's not the case...

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